PHILADELPHIA — When the Giants needed Eli Manning the most last night, the quarterback stumbled, both figuratively and literally. On a huge fourth-quarter, fourth-down scramble, his attempt at a headlong dive turned into an awkward bumble — and fumble — as he lost the ball and the game, 27-17 to the Eagles.

“You go with momentum; you’re trying to get as much yardage as you can,” said Manning, who committed three of the Giants’ five turnovers. “You’re running and it comes to the point where you don’t want to slow down, you don’t know if it’s too late. You go down the fastest way you know how to.

“It’s happened before. You’ve just got to not worry about the yardage and go down when you have the first down, just go feet first and move the chains.”

On fourth-and-6 from the Giants’ 44, after the Giants had fallen behind 24-17, Manning was trying to engineer a game-tying drive. He scrambled for a first down and more up the middle, gaining 16 yards, but not sliding cleanly when he needed to.

He lost control of the ball after he hit the ground, with Eagles defensive end Darryl Trapp recovering his fumble. Giants coach Tom Coughlin, who has a stellar record in challenges, threw the red flag to challenge the loose ball-recovery ruling, but this time the play was upheld, and the Giants were upended.

“He should’ve slid. The competitor in him, he’s trying to get as much yardage as he could. You see him start to lunge, and I don’t think we would’ve said a thing if the ball didn’t come out. But it did,” Coughlin said, before adding “and it has happened before.”

That was last year, when these two teams met at Giants Stadium. Manning had his jersey grabbed on a scramble, but instead of going down he tried to keep running and lost the ball. Last night’s fumble proved even more costly.

His scamper would have given the Giants a first-and-10 on the Eagles’ 40, but he saw the ball — and the game — slip through his fingers. In the end, he finished 20-of-32 for just 147 yards, with two touchdowns, two interceptions and the all-important fumble in a showdown for first place in the NFC East.